DEATH GOES TO THE DOGS

By Anna Tambour and ODDNESS

When Death Takes A Holiday, You're Coming Along (like it or not).

What's it really like in Dog Heaven? Why do angels cheat at golf? If charity begins at home, where does it end? And what-and why-are barnacle geese? The unbelievable answ

• Language: English
• Publisher: ODDNESS
• Release date: Mar 21, 2023
• ISBN: 9781732212459

Anna Tambour

Anna Tambour is an author of satire, fable and other strange and hard-to-categorize fiction and poetry.

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Story Copyright © 2023 Anna Tambour

Art Copyright © 2023 Mike Dubisch

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without the prior written permission of the copyright owner, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

To request permissions, contact the publisher at:

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Softback ISBN: 978-1-7322124-4-2

Hardback ISBN: 978-1-7322124-7-3

Electronic ISBN: 978-1-7322124-5-9

First paperback edition March 2023.

Edited by Cody Goodfellow & Daniel Ringquist

Cover art & illustrations by Mike Dubisch

Layout by ODDNESS

Printed in the United States of America on SFI Certified paper.

First Edition

ODDNESS

www.forbiddenfutures.com

Ordering Information:

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To Clarence Young, singular inspirer

I decided right then and there: screw it.

—C.Y.

CONTENTS

The Power of 3

Who Knows Where the Wasp Can Wear Her Sting

Hand Out

And Everywhere that Mary Went

Curse of the Mummy Paper

God

Reaper’s Break

Out Where the Grapes of Wrath Are Stored

T. Saginata’s Travails in Distant Lands; & the History of O, a Foundling

Coverguy

And Mr. Death Shalln’t Have Had No B&B

The Dog Who’d Been Dead

The Divorce of Death and Pestilence

Gnawer of the Moon Seeks Summit of Paradise

Where Geese Fall Far From the Trees

Shaking Heaven’s Fleas

Bones in Heaven

THE POWER OF 3

The Power of 3

Parsec Issue #1

PS Publishing, 2021

1. The First Little Pig

Oh, no, said the pig.

Oh, yes, said the wolf. Sorry.

Look, said the wolf. It’d be so much easier if you’d just accept. Once every telling, I burn your house down.

He pulled out a monogrammed silver lighter.

No, said the pig.

Don’t get stroppy with me, said the wolf, flashing a gold-capped canine.

Then don’t get sloppy with me, said the pig. "And close that mouth. What do you do to my home, my castle, the place I keep my slippers?"

What d’you mean? said the wolf, who had started to breathe heavily.

Take it easy, said the pig. You must be, what, pension age now?

And your chins wag. You keen to be burnt up, too? Please move aside.

The pig’s tidy ankles moved not one jot. Do I have to repeat myself, he said. Think back. My house is made of straw, so you —

Burn it to a crisp!

"Do you want to go down in history as an ijit? Must I repeat, what d’you do to my house? Eat it?"

You think I’m an ijit!?

Banish it?

Don’t be daft.

Just try to concentrate. Yes. Close your eyes and say after me. I huff and I puff, and I—come on. I bl—

I blows your house down, muttered the wolf.

Blow is quite sufficient, said the pig. "But why the shifty eye? So you can’t remember. So you get mixed up. So you’re short of breath. So perhaps you purposely forgot. I’m no rooster. I won’t crow."

We don’t talk, said the wolf.

"So that you remember."

But the wolf had never had a nose for irony. It's time.

Rightee-oh, said the pig. But first, would you excuse me for a tick?

Just a tick. Remember, this story isn’t just about you. I’ve a house to burn.

"Oh, I remember. Now I’ll be just a mo’."

The pig didn’t try to shut the door, so as the wolf watched the pig’s neat footsteps as he trotted down the spotless hall, not a straw out of place; he looked down also at his own feet, at the swept step, and then around at the front garden—everything in perfect order.

A shit builder, thought the wolf. But, he whistled wistfully, such a tidy neighbour I can only wish I had.

Here ’tis, said the pig, appearing again in a buttoned-up dustcoat and carrying a new straw broom.

You want a little dustup, said the wolf magnanimously. It’s not in the story, and everything’s in its place here but—

Not quite, said the pig, who then beat the wolf to such a death that the step was covered in hairy mush, except for two things that the pig fished out, wearing rubber gloves to do so.

The pig scooped the mush up into a big red basin and carried it past his shed to his burn pit at the back of the garden where at the normal time in this short but eventful story, the scent of burning plantation fir and cedar, rare rainforest parquet flooring, and repurposed ancient oak would have rent the afternoon sky till it could only have wished to cry, Evict! but not even in this story’s imagination can that happen.

Instead, the rank scent of the incinerated wolf was smothered by a unique blend of emissions—corncobs, loose tea, chestnut shells, discarded frightfully stale on-special beernuts, pome-tree prunings, visiting-pigeon droppings stuffed with rose hips, and the slurry from the pig’s ginger plant—a divine emanation that rose, curled, and spread like some luxuriating cat, over fake terracotta tile and fifteenth-century chimney pots alike, and made every nostril in the neighbourhood tingle in pleasure at this marvellously organic, truly potpourric miasma.

And the gold tooth? He gave it to DGS, his favourite tax-deductible charity. He had a thing for destitute grasshoppers but he wasn’t just some leftist with a soft-as-well-past-al-dente touch to those who never plan for the future, let alone for famine. Grasshoppers are nutritious as well as delicious—and that crunch!

He did regret, however, that he hadn’t saved a little something more from the wolf.

So he stuck a note to his fridge in case of another wolf ever calling.

Keep a claw. Would make one grand toothpick.

2. Just Being Neighbourly

Believe it or not, squatters are everywhere.

They were very, very weary, and horribly hungry, and winter was hard on their heels, and this place seemed almost capital, so they moved in during the so-called dead of night under the broken watch of the smashed streetlight, carrying all their belongings on their backs. They had each a bowl for their porridge; a little bowl for the Little Wee Bear; and a middle-sized bowl for the Middle-sized Bear; and a great big bowl for the Great Big Bear. And they had each a chair to sit in; a little chair for the Little Wee Bear; and a middle-sized chair for the Middle-sized Bear; and an electric lift recliner (a constant source of unstated conflict) for the Great Big Bear. And they had each a bed to sleep in; a single for the Little Wee Bear; and a Queen for the Middle-sized Bear; and, because of the recliner another Queen for the Great Big Bear.

Between foreclosures brought on by unpaid mortgages and those initiated by homeowners associations for delinquent dues, squatting in foreclosed homes has become quite the phenomenon.

The Bears couldn’t tell if this was a dangerous nice quiet neighbourhood, or an exemplar of the phenomenon, so they tiptoed to their beds.

The next morning, after they had made the porridge for their breakfast and poured it into their bowls, they walked out into the garage while the porridge was cooling, that they might not burn their mouths by beginning too soon; for they were polite, well-brought-up Bears. And while they were away, a ferret named Goldilocks came a-calling.

He and his family of a dozen or so—he’d lost count—were also newcomers to the neighbourhood, having tunnelled in next door just the week before, as the ground shook under the heels of the departing sheriff.

Unlike the Bears’ house, the Ferrets’ was (though it had a bit of a glass encumbrance what with all the smashed lamps, bottles and glasses) fully furnished, with numerous socks, slithery piles of papers, soft toys, stuffed chairs and sofas, a cute ferret-sized plastic mansion and a fire station with a sliding pole (only slightly smashed), and a cornucopia of a kitchen. So many things, it was a wonder Big Momma Ferret asked little Goldilocks to go next door to borrow a cup of sugar.

And maybe she didn’t, but that was the story Goldilocks was prepared to tell if he got caught. He peeped in at the keyhole, for he was not at all a well-brought-up little ferret. Oh, his mother had tried, but she’d kind of had it by his time (# 12).

Seeing nobody in the house, he lifted the latch.

The door was not fastened, not because the Bears were good Bears who did nobody any harm and never suspected that anybody would harm them, but because Great Big Bear knew nothing about breaking in. Though he had for many years read Popular Mechanics, he had always passed by the enticing advertisements to ‘Earn $25 an hour as a Locksmith’, in the process also failing to provide for his family in a manner befitting their otherwise decency.

Middle-sized Bear nagged him incessantly to get them out of this poverty trap and had almost bored his ears off with, Wee won’t be wee forever. As if Wee’s ability to get into a place was all that was needed. They were all too polite to come out with naked insults, but Mid was all too eloquent in her unstated aspersions. He had to act insouciant for there was only so much he could do to provide for his family, so he lived in constant fear of Wee Little growing up with neither the right to a decent livelihood nor legal protections to live in ruins.

But that didn’t mean he was idle. He researched like a mad chipmunk whenever he had the opportunity. So, for instance, while Mid was out scrounging, gossips said he was lounging feet up in their dive, lost in fantasy pages of another Pop Mech, this one blaring from its cover ‘Build Yourself a Weatherproof Berry Patch’. Little did they know that secreted amongst those pages was what he was really reading—the key to the Bear family future:

The Wrong Way to Remove Squatters in Your HOA

Beyond learning the proper way to get rid of squatters, you must also know how to remove squatters the wrong way. By knowing what you can’t do, you can protect your Home Owners’ Association from potential liability.

These are actions that you absolutely can’t do in an attempt to remove squatters living in foreclosed homes:

Cut power to the property;

Turn off utilities for the property;

Threaten, intimidate, or abuse the squatter/s in any way, shape, or form; and,

Use violence against the squatter/s.

Mid, uh, Mama Bear knew more than she let on. She knew what he was doing, but sometimes this life was all too much for her who was now just a low-class sneaky nomad, by, she reminded herself, compassionate choice.

For after all, what did she need him for? Or any him? She’d always been as independent as her mother, and her mother’s mother, and all mama bears from the first to, as proper time would have it, eternity.

But she was a soft touch, and when he came a-begging with no malice in his eyes about her cub, she let him graze beside her in the blueberry patch.

And by the time she heard bushes rustle behind and saw him chuffing the cub along in protective panic, it was almost too late.

When he told her his story in her all-too-easily found den, it was too late. Her compassion, that thing more useless to a mama bear than plastic wrap for freshness—that extraneous-to-needs and able-to-damage-you-if-you-don’t-throw-it-away thing—that thing compassion had snuck into her heart and lodged there.

She couldn’t kick him out to be the loner he was born to be. Not only couldn’t she do that, but he became, to the superficial crowd, the crowd most likely to be suspicious and cause trouble, Head of the Household.

If only he’d liked salmon-fishing better. Instead, he’d travelled down to California to get some easy work at BeesKnees Pure Clover Honey. Line workers there got less than minimum wage but they got a two percent discount on as much honey as they could buy. He spent his first pay entirely on honey, and took it out to a place under an overpass that was the closest he could find to a den. On sticking his tongue into the first jar, he pulled back, shocked. Dyed, flavoured sugar-water!

The next shift, he told his supervisor, who took his complaint Upstairs, who then passed Up his details, and by sundown, he was running for his life.

He ran and he ran and he ran. He ran, in fact, right up the bony spine of California, all the way up to the hairy wilds of Oregon, where he met that mama bear and her cub…

…and where they were chased out and had to start the life of indigents, for he was too afeared to go to anyone else, though she told him all about the comfortable life they’d lead under witness protection.

According to whom?

Movies.

The same movies that say I am a threat to you?

No. Those are documentaries.

And so they were this unnaturally enlarged nuclear family, living as stable an itinerant life as possible, and he was always reading, and they were always hungry but with the fixings of three hot meals—three hot meals that were now, in fact, cooling.

Ma Ferret had a wealth of time to read, but she preferred to gambol. The whole family were gambolling addicts—on first arriving from England in the wake of the great rabbit famine, such references would often be corrected by sticklers to ‘whole family was’, but if they continued talking about, say, the tasty hares of the Scottish highlands, the parochial pedants wilted under the immigrants’ internationalism.

I were just norticing wot luvily pockets you have, they’d next say to their abashed audience, for they was always polite, though Pa Ferret did have a smell that could clear out drains.

But the porridge will turn cold as roadkill if the Bears continue to fuss in the garage, tsking at the oil-stained floor, and we are still only up to:

Then, seeing nobody in the house, he lifted the latch.

Actually, he was a little disgusted. What’s the use of ‘Goldilocks’ if you lift instead of pick?

He dropped to the floor and nearly brained himself, hitting his head on its polished surface. The place was a wasteland of cleanliness. The stench of cleaning products made him gag, but he persevered. Ma had heard the Bears break in, she said. And Ma had ruminated over the pickings that the Bears would be treated to. Meaning: there must be orphans here. Ma will be so proud.

The Bears had never done anybody any harm, and never suspected that anybody would harm them (in their dreams! Great Big Bear especially was sick of all the times he’d been told how lucky he was, always by those who’d never had to squat, those who’d never had to get their meals from garbage cans, or live on porridge).

So when Goldilocks started casing the joint, he was not well pleased when he saw, not any orphan socks, not a delicious bunny, not a coat with pockets—but three bowls of scarily smoking substance emitting an evil smell. They sat on the floor of a dining room that was otherwise empty except for three unmatched chairs, two against the walls and one mid-room, ready to recline. Its cord was stretched taut as a dead rat’s tail.

If Goldilocks had been a well-brought-up little girl she wouldn’t have been there. The well-brought-up little girl had been evicted along with the rest of her family.

Goldilocks looked at the bowls of porridge in this desert of a house, and slunk out.

Later that day, he snuck back in to leave three socks.

3. How Much is that Teapot in the Sales Bin?

Who would think to rub this? It’s riven with sharp chased lines filled with dirt, and with that low-slung swell, long spout, and angled elbow, it looks like an angry mother with one hand on a hip, and it has BO. But who can choose their place of birth?

Oh dear. The indignity of being rummaged (and the pathetic, hopefilled thrill). Lifted up high, my spout scoops air laden with fragrances—oatmeal soap, some supermarket shampoo; ohh er! a whiff of Terre d’Hermès perfume for men but always in a place like this, worn by a woman who wants to be seen as casually rich and certainly independent; its price is not just for the name, but the story that it’s been created by a ‘great nose’. But trust me. My nose says—and do I have a nose!—it’s a mix of citronella candle and spray-on insect repellent with added pepper for irritation. The smell physically hurts my nostrils, tingles on my skin, and if I had a dog, it would make my dog sneeze and run from me. And I’m quite convinced it would ward off swarms of bugs. No one should wear this, especially if you love dogs.

I wish I were consulted re chemical attractants, but no one ever has—though who else but I should know the power, or lack of it re attractants? That cloud of pricy stench, however, has (thank the marketers who made sure it needs constant application) dissipated, leaving room for the richness of the room’s atmosphere: must, mildewed leather, tarnished brass and silver, gumboots rife with fungi; a silk chemise that has been hand-laundered but no one can truly get the underarm out. The sad sweet reek of book lice. Wool and more wool and instead of normal dust, a miasma of dog hair floating like a cloud, and— hmm, could that possibly be? It is! There’s no smell like it in the world. It’s that poorly wrapped toffee (a few dog hairs always sprouting as from a genie’s nose) made for a certain charity. The first time I’d smelled it, I retched, but that’s only because one needs to develop. But I like the smell of burnt sugar and I love dogs, dry and wet, so I was made for this stuff. I’ve only come across it in passing as I’ve been carried past in ecobaskets, backpacks, recycled carry bags and cardboard boxes yanked from car boots while the meter’s running.

I’ve been in every shop but this one—the source of that divinity—ground zero—oh my mo’ and whiskers—how I’ve longed to come here—the op shop To the Dogs deep in the heart of op shop street, Edinburgh.

This jersey is a bit steep at fifteen pounds, don’t you think?

Aye. But I would never buy it.

So?

So?

So I’ll have it and this. I got it from the sales bin. I don’t know as I’ll ever get it cleaned up. And just look here. This side has lost its roundedness. It looks like a bloody sultana.

So you’ll be buying it or not?

I’m buying the jersey, so you’ll give me this bashed teapot for — She raised an eyebrow invitingly.

What’s it say on the sales bin? All items ten pounds, or charity to customers?

No need for such cheek.

Aye, no need. It’s just a wee bonus service.

Your practicing for the comedy festival here won’t get you nearer. I’ll need change for this fifty.

As would we all.

It’s pity’s all it is, you know. I shouldn’t have got this frightful teapot, but I can brighten anything up. This bit of junk has been in every shop on the street.

I feel the flashing warmth of a different hand and I wish with all my heart—but she’d only touched. No rub. Instead she says, I’m so sorry for the teapot.

So there it is. I’m up against it yet again. Fate, it calls itself. I refuse to go so far.

You’re just bad luck, I’d always told it.

Soon as she got home, the old bird fairly ripped me out of the recycled Tesco bag.

Gimme what I paid for.

I, of course, stayed pat.

Come out. I know you’re in there. I could hear her taking off a number of heavy rings. They clattered on a glass-topped table. I’ve always hated glass-topped tables. Glass should be used in cases. Putting someone on show is what glass is for, not for coffee cups to mark, old carpet to show up through.

I heard a sofa sigh or cry. It was hard to tell, it sounded so defeated.

Suddenly two hands did rub the teapot, but they did so incidentally in the act of violently shaking it, upended. The lid hung open like a question mark without a dot. Mine eyes saw stars and I passed out wondering whether a human’s